what we do in the shadows
by fuzzyvonpretty
Summary: Andrew knows he screwed up, and he doesn't know how to fix it. Post-ep for 15x17.


When he walks up the driveway, he sees her.

He's never really thought of Meredith as an outdoors person. Sure, they've been outside together; but he's never thought of her as someone who willingly spent time out-of-doors.

But there she is, on her porch swing, knees drawn up and chin resting on them. She's got a glass of wine in one hand. It doesn't look like she's looking at anything in particular.

In her eyes, he sees something like hurt. The hurt he saw pass over them when he told her to leave. He feels a band snap in his chest – _he_ did this. He hurt her. He curses himself, for the millionth time that day. He's fucked up his career, his family, and his personal life all at the same time.

He feels uneasy, walking up to her. It's her house, her porch, and her life. They are _barely_ together, and he feels like he fucked that up.

It's been a couple of days since he told her to leave him alone, and it's been all avoidance since then. Mostly on his part. He's holed himself up in a lab or an on-call room or in his apartment. He's not even answering Carina's phone calls, though she's been calling him a lot.

Meredith hasn't been calling. Meredith hasn't even texted.

And why should she? She's an accomplished woman. She's a widow with three kids. Why should she care about him? That's the stab he's felt the past few days – that this was an inevitability. She would realize she was too good for him, that she was better than that. And he just hastened along that decision by acting like an immature child.

Andrew has made it a point not to think about Meredith's husband. He knows, in some way, that her husband is always there. Even though he's been gone for a while – at least a year from when Andrew first met Meredith, and it's been a while since then – he knows that's not something she'll ever forget or get over.

He knows he doesn't rate. Especially not after this week.

Meredith still hasn't noticed him standing there, so he takes another few steps forward. She startles, and her eyes narrow and she recognizes him. Maybe he's made a huge mistake.

"Meredith." It comes out almost pitifully. His hands are in his pockets, like a naughty schoolboy.

She keeps staring out into the middle distance. She's silent for a while and he wonders if he should turn around and go back home. It's too late to change residency, but he'll just keep finding ways to avoid her until his residency is over and he goes to do his fellowship in… Arkansas? North Dakota? Where's the last place he would run into Meredith Grey?

"Did I ever tell you," she whispers, "about the clinical trial?"

Andrew is dumbstruck. That's not what he thought he'd hear from her after days of radio silence.

"The tumor one? I mean, I read about it, in college." Andrew feels stupid, and also like he's drawing a line under his youthful immaturity.

"No, not that one. The Alzheimer's one."

Andrew wracks his brain. He doesn't remember reading about it, and he doesn't remember hearing about it. He's been gravitating ever closer since she started speaking. She's still on the bench, knees up, wine in hand, staring out into the distance. He's a few feet away, standing in half-light. It's warm out, but he feels a chill through his leather jacket. "No. No, I don't think you have."

Meredith takes in a big breath and a swig of wine. "No, I wouldn't have, unless I told you, which I didn't, and it wasn't written up anywhere. It was the biggest mistake of my residency." Her eyes flash to meet his for a second. They're as icy as green eyes ever get.

"Derek wanted to cure Alzheimer's, because of me." Andrew's not following, but he has a feeling maybe he's not supposed to. "He started this clinical trial, and Richard's wife was getting worse, quickly. She got into the trial, and I messed with it so that she would get the active agent."

Andrew feels a little sick, knowing this, and still not quite following. But he lives for the sound of her voice, no matter what she's saying. As long as she's not telling him to go to hell.

"Anyway, Alex found out, and he told Owen, and Owen told the chief…" She trails off.

Andrew stands quietly. Meredith lived so much before he ever even got here. He is such a small element of her life. He feels miniscule, unimportant. But he's also not sure why she's telling him all of this.

"Anyway, it almost resulted in Derek and I getting a divorce. The night it all came out, we got Zola, and I came home to an empty house with a baby and no idea what to do." She takes another swig out of her wine glass. "Andrew, come sit."

He obliges, shuffling over quietly and taking a seat next to her on the swing. It starts to rock back and forth, slowly, and he finds it peaceful. She's still not looking at him.

"I had to go to patients signed up for the trial and tell them it was over. I couldn't tell them why, but I had to tell them, and every single time it was like a slap to the face reminding me how badly I had fucked up." She dips her head and smooths her ponytail, and while he knows she isn't crying, he hears vulnerability in her voice.

"I'm not your teacher right now, Andrew, and I don't want to be. But I do want you to know – need you to know – that we all screw up, and it's what we do _after_ we screw up that matters." Ah, there it is.

He clears his throat. "So, what did you do?"

Meredith half-smiles. "Derek and I had to stop working together. We almost lost Zola. Alex was persona non grata for months. I spent some time slumming it up on OB. It wasn't great."

She's looking at him now, chin resting on her folded arms. She cocks her head to the side. "What you did, Andrew, wasn't nearly as bad. You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't kill anyone. You had faith in the idea and faith in the person, and only one of those was misplaced."

Andrew feels emotion clawing up his throat. He looks away, quickly, so she can't see if the tears that are threatening to spill wind their way down his face.

"Andrew. I know what it is to hate your father. And I know what it is to be disappointed by him. And I even know what it is to be abandoned by him. And on top of that, I know what it is to still want him." He looks away, because he can't stop now. He gets up quickly, stepping away and into the half-shadow again.

"Meredith, I was a _fucking idiot_. I knew he was manic, I ignored everybody, I defended him to the Chief, and I hurt you." His voice cracks on this last bit, and he can't help the humiliation that burns through him. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for how I acted. I just… I'm sorry." He's shaking his head and he feels the tears building up again.

Meredith stands up to face him. She reaches out and grabs his hand. "Andrew." He bites his lower lip, keeps his head down. Her hand reaches up to his face, caresses his cheek. He shakes his head, imperceptibly, and looks at her. She's so close.

"Andrew." It's a hushed sound. Her hand slides up from his and wraps around his bicep, then moves to rest on his chest. He's sure she can feel his heart hammering away, ready to burst. "You don't need to apologize to me. You were – are – hurt. It's not your fault."

This, he thinks. This hurts even more. The acceptance. "I said an awful thing to you, Meredith. I can't take that back, no matter how much I want to."

"Andrew. I'm much stronger than that. You hurt me, sure. But I know why you did." The hand that's resting on his face strokes down and comes to rest on the side of his neck. Her hand is so warm, despite her having been outside. He leans into it, wanting more. They're close now, within breathing distance.

"I never want to do that again," he murmurs. "I didn't chase you for months just to drive you away."

"And I didn't say yes just to give up on you one month in," she responds, again with the half-smile.

"I mean it, Meredith. I'm so sorry." He brushes his lips against her forehead as his hands almost automatically wrap around her and pull her into an embrace. Her arms wind around him, and she looks up. He realizes now she's not wearing any shoes, so she's even shorter than usual. He kisses the tip of her nose.

"Meredith?" She's turned her head so her ear is resting against his chest; one of his hands is stroking her hair.

"You're warm," she murmurs. He trails his hand down from her hair, across her jawline, tipping her chin up to look at him.

"Meredith, can I kiss you?" She leans in and brushes her lips against his – an answer. The kiss quickly deepens – they're emotional, and torn up, and broken inside.

Andrew knows he has to come up for air, wake up from this dream. But when she pulls away and he opens his eyes, he's still here, in her driveway, with her in his arms.

"I don't know what I did to deserve you," he whispers, tucking her hair behind her ear.

She smiles up at him, a sight he doesn't think he'll ever tire of. "You should thank Amelia. I was this close to flying off the handle, and then you would have felt like you _absolutely_ deserved me, but she talked me down."

He chuckles in a low tone. He's covered by this warm feeling, like all the tragedy and drama and garbage from the past few days has been swept away. He's still a fuckup, and his dad's still an unconvicted felon, and his sister is still pissed as hell at him, and the whole hospital still knows what an idiot he was, but it almost feels like – just for now, just for a minute – none of that matters.

"You should come inside," she says, and his jaw drops a little. She pulls out of his arms and grabs his hand, pulling him toward her front door. "And before you get the wrong idea, you're not spending the night. But I want to show you something."

They push through the door and Andrew looks around. Not much has changed since he camped out on her couch for a week – it's still impeccably clean, almost definitely the work of Meredith's nanny. She gestures for him to sit down on the couch and disappears upstairs for a moment. He pulls off his jacket and sits down, leaning back into the cushions. He takes the moment to reach into his pocket and pull out his phone. He pulls up his text history with his sister.

"sorry to be such an asshole. talk tomorrow?" he taps in quickly.

She responds almost immediately. "my baby brother. Talk then." He smiles, just a tiny bit, just as Meredith comes down the stairs with a black book in hand. She flops down on the couch next to him and flips open the book she's brought with her. It's filled with scrawling handwriting – a journal of some sort. While she pages through it, Andrew slings his arm around the back of the couch, loosely framing her shoulders.

"This is one of my mom's many residency journals. She wrote constantly. And, contrary to popular belief, she screwed up _all the time_." Meredith's hands fly over the pages. "Here, she's doing fine, learning a technique, talking about general surgery, and then here it is." Her hands stop over the page. "She botched a basic appy in her third year as a resident. She was operating with Richard and then one of them screwed up, and she took it out on him. Pages and pages about how pissed she was at him, how he betrayed her trust, how he wasn't the doctor she thought he was, how she was worried she wasn't the doctor _she_ thought she was… and then, a week later, everything's back to normal. The patient survived and she and Richard were back on speaking terms."

She hands the journal to Andrew, who begins to read. "Don't go farther than those pages if you care about keeping your appetite." She rests her head on his shoulder while he reads.

He is constantly amazed at how open she is with him. After the push and pull of the last few months, it is sweet relief to sit on her couch, reminiscing over old journals and hold her close to him. He feels the stress and agitation of the week uncoiling, replaced by the familiar and beautiful, the excruciating tension between them.

As he reads, he hears Meredith's breath even out on his shoulder. He looks over and her eyes are closed. "Mere?"

He gets a light moan in response. "Mere, you asleep?"

"No," she mumbles. She curls into him, resting a hand on his chest. He grabs a blanket off the back of the couch and covers her. He lightly closes the journal – Ellis has forgiven Richard, and he doesn't want to know what happened next – and rests his head against Meredith's. The emotional exhaustion kicks in and he knows he doesn't want to be anywhere else.

He's awoken some time later. "Hey, Sleeping Beauty." He opens his eyes to see Dr. Shepherd staring at him with a bemused smirk on her face. "You're supposed to take her to the _bedroom_, not the living room couch."

"Sorry, Dr. Shepherd, I just closed my eyes for a minute." Andrew's amazed at the lack of embarrassment he feels right now, but Meredith is still curled into him and he feels so incredibly whole.

"Don't worry about it, Deluca. Just don't spend the night, y'know."

"I know." Of course. Because no matter how much he wants to, and no matter how right it feels, it has to be on Meredith's terms. Amelia gives him an odd little salute and runs up the stairs; he hears her door shut.

Andrew doesn't want to disturb Meredith, so he gently stands up from his position on the couch, winding his other arm under her knees and pulling her up with him in his arms. She slings the arm on his chest around his neck and curls inward, again, while he gently, carefully, carries her upstairs. He's pretty sure she's somehow, amazingly, still asleep.

He brings her into her bedroom, taking it all in. He hopes next time he's here, he's too busy to remember anything but her name and her skin. Their time will come. Now, he just needs to put her to bed.

He lays her down on the bed, loath to part from her but knowing it's in both of their best interests. He pulls down the comforter and tucks her under it, brushes the hair away from her forehead, and ghosts his lips against her forehead.

He takes out his pen to scribble a quick note on the pad of Post-Its in his pocket. He's at a loss for what to write. "Good morning"? "Hope you slept well"? "I hope you remember you're not mad at me anymore"? After a minute of deliberation, it comes to him and he scribbles it down, leaving it on her bedside table. He soaks in the vision of her peacefully asleep in bed, turns off the light, and closes the door. Their time will come.

When Meredith wakes up in the morning, the first thing she sees is a yellow Post-It on her alarm clock. She grabs for it.

"Meredith: You're amazing. –A."


End file.
